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Saturday, October 26, 2013

I have the privilege to share with you the insights of my personal coach, Corey Payton.

Last year, I wrote about Life After Life Coaching, and the deep impact it has made in my life. Recognizing my goals and identifying the hindrances from reaching those goals have been a major part of my decision to take a year off from full-time work to be more in touch with who I want to become. Yes, my Gap Year discernment started with the coaching sessions. I went through formal spiritual direction/counseling with a priest a few months after that (see New Stop in the Journey) but I was greatly helped by my personal coach.

Corey was interviewed on Melbourne TV recently. It aired on two episodes of Spirit of Life. He talks about his faith journey since childhood in the first episode.

The second interview is more about coaching and the topics he is going to discuss when he speaks before the Christian Singles Conference this November.

I was blessed by his sharing and his insights, and I am sure many people will be when they watch this video and attend this conference.

Thursday, October 03, 2013

(Blogger's Note: The Catholic faithful are asking questions about the Pope's recent interviews. Here is an analysis of the nuances behind the Pope's answers and clarifies how, even as he brings a breath of fresh air, Pope Francis and his message are consistent with Church doctrine.)

The Fresh Wind of the Spirit of God

Fr Steven Tynan, MGL

Pope Francis is certainly causing a
bit of a stir in the press. There are many applauding what he has to say and
also many expressing consternation with positions that he seems to be taking,
or that people claim that they can read or discern in his statements and
interviews. There are those in the media painting the new pope as a ‘breath of
fresh air’ and a liberal based upon some of his comments to media and
peripheral statements made in interviews.

Is Pope Francis about to challenge
or even change the Church’s position on various moral or doctrinal issues? Is
he going to open the way for the liberalization of theology and morality? I
think not! If one reads the more in depth interviews that he has made over the
years, and I speak here particularly of his extensive dialogue with the then
Chief Rabbi of Argentina, Abraham Skorka, available to us all under the title
of “On Heaven and Earth,” New York: Image, 2013 [trans.]), one will see that
Pope Francis is about as orthodox as they come in his views on morality and
doctrine. Those who suggest he has a liberal streak or are drawing conclusions
that he is about to change the Church’s teachings in these areas have either
not read this discussion or choose to ignore it and grasp at phrases taken out
of context in the more widely available statements and interviews of and with
the pope.

My attention has been called to the
recently published interview with Antonio Spadaro, S.J. that appeared in a
number of journals including America (Sept 30, 2013), where some are suggesting
that they read a radical repositioning of the Church under the watch of Pope
Francis. Is this true? Let us briefly look at this interview and see what the
pope has to say in it.

For me the first major point Pope
Francis makes is that he wants to enter into dialogue and discernment
concerning first and foremost the things that really matter. He mentions this
in the context of one of the mottos of John XXIII concerning good governance in
that one should “see everything; turn a blind eye to much; correct a little."
This he argues is derived from the vision of Ignatius, “not to be limited by
the greatness and yet to be contained in the tiniest – this is the divine.” (Non coerceri a maximo, sed contineri a
minimo divinum est.) The Pope is not advocating blissful ignorance of the
problems facing the Church but saying that through careful and patient dialogue
we must identify the right way(s) in which to lay the foundations for moving
forward in the work of the Church. Many would suggest that the idea of
spiritual discernment is at the heart of what Ignatian spirituality offers the
Church, and thus it is not a surprise if it will be at the centre of Pope
Francis’ papacy. Pope Francis notes that this will require patience and
commitment.

The second point that really drew
my attention was the pope’s use of the image of the Church as a Field Hospital.
The pope is calling for a Church that has to the ability to heal wounds and
minister mercy. It is the duty of the pastors of the Church to walk with and attend
to the needs of their flock and see that no one gets left behind. Bishops
should be in their dioceses and priests in their parishes and ministries so
that the first priority of the Church, preaching the Gospel on every street
corner is a living reality. This call to conversion of heart to the point that
the hearts of the faithful ‘burn’ with faith and love like the disciples on the
road to Emmaus (Lk 24), needs to be the Church’s first concern.

Its second concern needs to be a
comprehensive catechesis that forms the faithful in the ways of the Holy
Spirit. Only when the faithful’s hearts are converted to Christ and formed in
his mind and heart will it be possible to successfully address the third
concern, namely the issues that confront the faithful in their moral lives and
their relationship with a secular society. If we make the first focus the
issues, which some might argue has been a tendency of late, then the danger
will be that the Church spends all its energies trying to convince people of
Church teaching without any common understanding or foundation. I believe the
pope is of the opinion, and it is something that I would agree with, that if we
can foster living relationships with God as the general experience of the
faithful then there will be a desire for formation and catechesis that will
lead to a situation where the issues, particularly the moral ones, will ‘work
themselves out of their own accord’ within the context of a lived experience of
faith. Why? If the work of true conversion is ongoing in our lives then we will
not be focused on the ‘issues’ but on deepening our relationship with Jesus
Christ! This is what truly matters; conversion gives a person a totally new
perspective and means by which to approach any moral or doctrinal issue. So,
Pope Francis wants the Church to rediscover its identity as ‘proclaimer of the
Kingdom of God’ and ‘the community of the faithful,’ as this is at the heart of
the way forward as he sees it.

For Pope Francis the life of
discipleship is a journey, an adventure to be undertaken with passion and
patience. We must make room for God in our lives and not just expect him to fit
in where it is convenient to us. We will make mistakes, all people do, but if
these mistakes are made within the context of our seeking God above all things,
they will be learning experiences as well as mistakes. The dogmatic certainty
that Pope Francis wants us to have first and foremost is the belief and trust
that God is working in every person’s life. We are all in search of our identity
as sons and daughters of God and as we embrace this journey of seeking and
discovering God in the midst of our daily lives, we cannot afford to lose sight
of either our humanity or God’s compassion – his desire to be with us as
Immanuel.

In summary, we as members of the
Church or the Church as a whole cannot reconstruct our lives or the institution
of the Church with the starting point of doctrinal purity. Faith is a lived
relationship and so our focus and that of the Church must first and foremost be
evangelization whereby that relationship is established. It is pastoral
concerns, proclaiming and witnessing to the truth that God wants to draw near
to us, and our drawing close to him, that have the highest priority. Secondly,
the relationship must be nourished through thorough catechesis. And finally the
issues, moral and doctrinal, can be addressed.

It is imperative that the Church
gets the emphasis right and continually focusing on the issues that only result
in division will not build a healthy and loving community. Our faith community
is built on the common element of God’s love for all mean and women and this
has to be the starting point of both evangelization and pastoral practice. Once
our relationships have been thoroughly nourished in God’s Word and the life of
the Holy Spirit, we will be ready to address the various doctrinal and moral
issues in detail.